Way back in the mid 1980's I was working for a home builder in Orlando. We had a new project getting ready to open, and I had been tapped to be the onsite marketing lead. It was a great opportunity. I had scheduled a week of vacation and planned a trip to New Orleans. Then the dates for the project opening were posted, to overlap with my planned vacation. I asked if the date could be moved, pointing out that development was behind schedule. The response was, "change your plans, or we will have someone else lead this project." I reasoned that the the project was behind schedule, and that was met with "he assures he will get it done." I cancelled my travel plans. Then the opening date was pushed back two weeks because the development was behind schedule - as I knew it was. I never did take that trip to New Orleans. I let work take priority over my life. (It was a very good year, the most profitable I ever had with that company.)
Flash forward to 2018, we were planning a trip to Vienna and onward into Slovakia to see where SBs grandmothers were born. I was serving on the board of a national organization, and they issued a save the date for an important board meeting in Nashville. We were instructed to hold the dates, but not make travel plans, as there were details to be worked out. It overlapped with the only dates that worked for Vienna, so we didn't plan that trip. Then the board meeting was moved to a month later. Fast forward to today, the locations in Slovakia are 60 miles from the border with Ukraine. We will make it to Vienna, but probably not father east. I let volunteer work be a priority over my life, and missed an opportunity that may never be possible again.
As I was planning this trip, there was a save the date for another board I am serving on, for a meeting in San Diego. I kept checking and the answer was, we are not confirmed, there are details that have to be worked out, we are not sure on the budget, don't make travel plans yet. Then the cruise that starts this adventure opened for booking. It is repositioning cruise, so there is only one date, the same week as the maybe, we are not sure, we are trying to work out the details board meeting. I finally decided it was time to let my life be the priority and I booked the cruise. Three months later I get repeated emails asking me if I can't please speak at the meeting in San Diego. I promptly explained that I would be in the middle of the Atlantic, and unable to be in San Diego.
It has taken me 50 years to do it, but I have my priorities straight, if it is not confirmed, I am not going to plan my personal life around it.
2: Should the average home get larger or smaller over the next ten years?
3: What is the most important thing for schools to teach today?
4: If travel to the moon was as easy and safe as going to the grocery store, would you go?
5: How do you eat a 100 pound Chocolate Easter Bunny?
My Answers:
1: What emerging technology do you think is going to have the biggest impact on life ten years from now? Autonomous vehicles, driverless cars, trucks, drones.
2: Should the average home get larger or smaller over the next ten years? Homes should get smaller.
3: What is the most important thing for schools to teach today? Human interaction. Machines can do research, write, make decisions, fly airplanes, what they don't do as well at is making people feel like they are valued, understood, or believed.
4: If travel to the moon was as easy and safe as going to the grocery store, would you go? No, and I am not sure why.
5: How do you eat a 100 pound Chocolate Easter Bunny? One bite at a time.
Please share your answers in the comments.
Modern buildings don't need to be boring.
I am on a digital detox. This post was written ahead of time and scheduled to appear today. I have not missed posting at least once per day in over a decade. While on this detox, I will not have internet access many days, when I do have access it will be limited. Please continue to leave comments, but I may not reply to comments. I will read comments when I can. Normal service will resume in late May.
People live differently in different places. The biggest differences are in international travel, though even from region to region within your country you will find differences. Differences in culture, in norms of behaviour, differences in language, the way homes are built, in the way that people live.
There is much to be learned from the differences in culture. To benefit from travel, I need to be culturally open minded. To expect that things will be different. To accept that what is different is normal.
When I travel I suspend judgement. I remind myself that no one way is inferior or superior. This is the hardest thing for most people to do. When I judge another culture against my norm, I fail to understand the culture.
I have learned many things when traveling, that have improved my life. I have tried not to try to change cultures, when I travel. I suspend judgement, and travel with a culturally open mind.
What will I learn on this grand adventure?
What have I been up to? Exploring the ship, relaxing, reading, taking a few photos.
Who I have I talked to? My sweet bear and strangers. I always talk to strangers.
What am I enjoying? A change of pace, a change of scene, the grand adventure of travel.
What can I see out of my window? Water-Water everywhere.
Today the easiest way to reach me is email, text is a second choice, I am hard to reach by phone as I often leave my phone in the other room and don't hear it, and if you don't show up on caller ID, I don't answer. I check email on my desktop computer, my phone, an Ipad, and a couple of Chromebooks. I spend several hours a day connected to the web, YouTube is my primary media for entertainment.
I probably spend far to much time being connected. And it is hard to get away from.
Starting late this afternoon, I will be disconnected to varying degrees for a month, a retreat from my hyper connected world. In the first couple of weeks there will several days of complete retreat, interspersed with four days when I will be connected for a few hours, but only a few. After that I will have phone service, and WiFi in hotels. Last year we did WiFi at sea and found it disappointing, the service was really not very good, and it didn't provide a break from the connected world, it just moved it a new venue with crappy service. We are not doing that this year. I will have phone and email when we are in Port (my phone plan includes 36 days of year of international service) and on the land based part of the trip.
Just before the sun sets today, my retreat from the hyper connected world begins. Worry not, there are posts scheduled for your reading enjoyment. I will reply to comments when the retreat is over.
My digital detox.
Our Sunday in Ft. Lauderdale
2: Where have you long dreamed of going, that you have not gone to?
3: Apart from where you live, where do you feel most at home?
4: Where have you traveled to the most times?
5: How would you like to travel across the continent?
My answers:
1: If there were no limits, where would you go today? Italy - that is where we leave for tomorrow.
2: Where have you long dreamed of going, that you have not gone to? Japan.
3: Apart from where you live, where do you feel most at home? London.
4: Where have you traveled to the most times? Florida, several times a year when my parents were alive.
5: How would you like to travel across the continent? I would like to drive it, but in very short travel days, maybe 100-150 miles a day average.
Please share your answers in the comments.
This is most notable on grand adventures, but it applies equally to every time we get out of the house, or out of the place we work. Examine what is around you, look for what is changing, what is new, and what is disappearing. Pause for a few minutes and watch a building being torn down, and you will develop new understanding of how buildings are built. What elements stand the strongest, what elements are the most fragile.
I am headed to the airport today, off to feed my creativity.
An update
35000 feet and headed south this afternoon, check in and security were a breeze. Lots of lakes and rivers down there.
I struggled with this post. The Muses seem to have left on the grand adventure a few weeks ahead of me. Inspiration has been hard to find. I had this post written, and left it to fester for a couple of days, and it hit me that the best part of it, was what was buried in the middle. I can hear a long ago editor shouting across the room, "don't bury the lead, put it first." I am so glad I learned from writers who knew how to write, even if it took 50 years for me to apply some of the lessons. (Dave Snoffer, you made a difference in your far to few years.)
I lived in Florida for almost 20 years, tourist season was a very real part of life. With Disney and the world of Worlds, there were actually several tourist seasons, Thanksgiving through New Years, snowbirds from November through March, spring breakers for a month around easter, and Brits broiling in the sun in summer (only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the Florida heat and humidity in July and August.)
Washington DC has a couple of defininate tourist seasons. Summer, starting in late May, though the end of August is family season. This crowd is filled with disheveled parents, bored children, most with sore feet in shoes that were stylish and not made for walking. You look at the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol building and think that is a nice 15 minute walk, not knowing it is over two-miles of hellscape. They think they can "see the Smithsonian" on Thursday before lunch, not realizing that the Smithsonian is eight museums in well over one-million square feet of space, and that does not include the National Gallery of Art - with two additional buildings or the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center out at Dulles with nearly 300,000 sq ft of aircraft and spacecraft displays.
School group seasons, there are two - mid-October through mid-November, and March-April when masses of middle and high school groups from across the eastern half of the country descend on the city. These are marked by large numbers of clearly distracted students, trying to be cool and fit in, led by either overly concerned chaperons or chaperones who are clearly glad they got a free trip to DC and don't really care if the kid wander off never to be seen before the bus leaves to go back to Iowa. They travel in packs of about 35, the number of seats on a tour bus, and all try to squeeze into the same door of a subway car, out of fear that if they go in a different door, they won't go to the same place.
Then there is Cherry Blossom season, also known as the season of disappointment. The Cherry Blossom festival is scheduled, the dates published, tours are booked, hotel prices are doubled about a year in advance, and the trees pay absolutely no attention to the schedule. Half the time the trees bloom two weeks before the festival and the trees are nice and green when the tourists arrive, about half the time, the trees bloom two weeks after the festival, leaving the tourists straining to see the pink buds and wondering what all of the hype is about. If the weather suddenly turns hot for three or four days, the trees may bloom, go into leaf and drop all of the blossoms - falling and drifting like snow, in three days. Maybe one in ten years, the peak bloom, matches the dates of the festival, the other nine out of ten years tourists wonder why they didn't book the Mardi Gras package instead, the parades always occur on the scheduled day (but seldom on time.)
What have I been up to in the kitchen? I asked Sweet Bear what he wanted for dinner, and he shrugged his shoulders and said, "take out Chinese?" That was all I needed to hear. I had ramen noodles, chicken, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, and a couple of Asian sauces, I made chicken veggie stir-fry over noodles. A few minutes of careful knife work, and a few minutes of cooking. Cheddar and Onion spread, my favorite Tesco Express sandwich when I am in the UK is Cheddar and Onion, sadly no one here makes this, so I make my own. It is simply grated onion, cheddar, mayo and maybe a little salt. Roast Pork Tenderloin, cheddar mashed potatoes, and mix veggies. Sloppy Joe's and potato salad.
Where have I been this week? The pool, the gym, the gallery to update a wall tag, the community center for an Arts group meeting. Into DC to have dinner with an old friend of Sweet Bear's. The farmers market. King Street in Old town Alexandria for a Sunday morning walk. The pharmacy and a walk along the river.
What have I been reading? Big Bad Wool, a novel about very wise sheep. I have four books loaded on my Kindle for travel reading. Amazon informed me this week, my Kindle is so old, that they are discontinuing technical support for it this spring. I have used this one for over ten years. A few years ago, I was worried that it was failing and I bought a replacement, but decided to keep using the old one as long as it worked. It still works, but sometime later this spring I won't be able to download new books to it. And I am okay with that. I have far and away gotten my money's worth out of it. When I am home, I read mostly print books, I use the Kindle when I travel, I can carry a months worth of books in less space and weight than one book. I find the screen on my phone too small to read much on. My IPad is an antique - but it does what I need. I expect that Apple will drop it from support in the next year or so.
Who have a talked to this week? My Sweet Bear, Erica, Eric, Warren, Paul, Marcel, Susan.
What is special about this post? For a couple of months, I have been writing posts, scheduling them ahead of time, to assure coverage while we are away on a Grand Adventure, and to allow myself a digital detox. While I may do a little editing and updating over the next 5 weeks, this is the last post that I need to write between now in May 21.
The encounter was entirely random, unplanned, and so so beauty filled.
Slow down and observe,
Look up and look around,
Sometimes the greatest beauty appears randomly.
Sadness: A dear neighbor died Friday morning. I met Larry a year or so ago, he was the partner of the sweet bear that leads the Saturday morning water aerobics classes. He was a local native, born and raised in Maryland, he had served in the military (Navy as a recall) then had a long career as an accountant for the department of defense. He has adult children in the area and was looking forward to the birth of a grandchild later this spring. He was kind of quiet, with a strong sense of humor. He and Giuseppe were so happy together. They had been regulars at our monthly LGBT community gatherings, hosting at their condo a coupe of times. (Movie night featuring "The Bird Cage" one evening.) I knew he had been unwell, bouncing from test to test, and specialist to specialist over the last few months. The last I had heard he was in the hospital, trying to make arrangements to come home. His death was not a surprise, when I saw the email, I had that sinking feeling. And yet it brings great sadness. It takes a while to move from the sadness of loss, to fondness at having known him.
Hold your friends close,
Give them a big hug while you can,
Life is short, embrace and enjoy everyday you can.
As a teenager I spent hundreds of hours printing thousands of black and white photographs - the old fashioned way on light sensitive silver gelatin papers. Photographic printing is an art form. From selecting the negative, cleaning it, putting it in the enlarger (a special projector device), setting up the chemistry, selecting the paper, focusing, setting aperture and exposure time. Variations in all of these and changes in temperature or humidity, all impact the work. Sometimes no matter what I did, nothing turned out well. Most of the time, the work was acceptable, but a struggle. Then there was the first time everything worked, every print was good, and if I made adjustments and made a second print it was even better. I pulled out negatives that I had struggled with in the past and nailed a perfect print on the first try. It was a magic feeling, I didn't want it to end. I worked late into the evening, until my father came knocking on the door telling me it was past time I washed things up and went to bed.
Maybe half a dozen times, in as many years, I hit that zone, the flow, the magic moment in printing photographs.
I have hit the same zone a handful to times when painting with acrylics, when everything just flowed. A couple of my best paintings were done in a single session.
It also happens sometimes when I am writing. I write half a dozen short articles a year for the American Bar Association Senior Lawyers Division Voice of Experience Journal. Some of them are written in a flurry, a single setting when the thoughts and words seem to just magically flow.
Those are wonderful moments in creativity. I have not found a formula for creating the conditions that cause them to happen, the moments just happen. But they only happen when I am creating, often sitting down to just grind it out. Not expecting anything special, and then the magic happens. And it feels absolutely wonderful.
Seek your magic moments.
When I was growing up in Michigan in the 1960's there were still remnants of horse drawn transportation around the area. Most barns or garages had remnants of collars and harnesses. The town livery stable, where horses visiting town would have been boarded and cared for was still there, a large barn painted a light green. Horses were bought and sold there probably into World War II. By my time the horses were but a memory, but the building stood for another few decades.
The part of the business that remained was the blacksmith shop. While the primary business was no longer shoeing horses, if you trailered them into town the craftsmen who worked where glad to do so, it was primarily as a place to have iron tools made or repaired. Ancient plows that cracked, would be repaired by experienced and expert hands. The coal fired forge was kept hot and working for decades beyond the horse days. They could make just about anything out of metal, replacements for one of a kind barn door hinges, or rollers for sliding barn doors were something they made every week. I remember going there a few times with my father or grandfather, with something from around the farm that needed repair. A garden tool, a mower blade that had hit a rock and was in need to straightening and sharpening. If you needed it now, they would stop what they were doing and attend to it, if not it would be ready sometime later tomorrow, and the cost would be next to nothing. Even then you wondered how they made a living. And it is possible that, they didn't, that they did it because it was what they did.
Around the corner from there, was Mr. Baldwin's leather repair shop. He was a master saddler, for the first half of his adult life he made and repaired harness and saddles. For the second half of his life, well on into his 8th decade, he repaired shoes. He stocked and sold work boots, but repairing shoes was the day to day way he kept himself busy. As an elementary school student I would walk to his shop during lunch, and he would do a minor repair and charge less than a dollar. Even then I would say, are you sure that is all? He was sure. It wasn't about making money, it was about being of service and practicing the craft that he learned as a teenager. He worked until the day his shop fell down. A delivery driver backed into the side of it, and literally the building collapsed around him. Luckily no one was hurt, but the building was shattered. His family convinced him to retire. A sad end to a long chapter in the life of a small town. He was the grandfather of one my high school friends.
What have I been up to in the kitchen? Pork chops cooked in cheesy scalloped potatoes. Pizza - a couple of varieties. Meatloaf, broccoli and cornbread. Roast beef and potato salad - a strange combination but it is what I felt like making. Roast chicken and veggies.
Who have a talked with? Oh my, Tom, Cathy, Jeffery, Warren, Mrs. Warren, Paul, Michelle, Jon, Ruth, Anna, Susan, Rafael, Mathew, Marcell, Victoria, Renne, Mike, Pastry Boy, David, Giuseppe.
What have I been thinking about? Life is short, live it while you can.
What is on the easel? A portrait of George Washington. The theme for our June-July show is Americana. I have challenged myself to create something new and different.
